Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary

The Finance Crisis

Explained, by Iowahawk:

I know what you’re saying — “who invited the fat chick to the Twister party?” Certainly, all of us (with the possible exception of Randy) wish she wasn’t here. But it’s important to remember that fat chicks are often an important source of party supplies, and we must take the good with the bad. In the same way, Fannie Mae supplies the critical financial weed and beer to keep our national economic party going.

The numbers are complex, but let me boil it down for the economic layperson. Fannie Mae is a government company type thing that has a large pile of money, which I will call “A”. The first thing it does is create $20 million bonuses for high performance executives like Franklin Raines, James Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, which I will call “B.” Next, it allocates an amount “C” to lobbyists to make sure important Congressmen always get a thoughtful holiday card from Fannie Mae. After subtracting B and C from A, they are left with D, which is lent to homebuyers. These homebuyers then pay back the amount E, which, when subtracted from D, leaves F, the amount Congress has to come up with. In order to keep this important financial system humming along at peak efficiency, it is necessary that you, the taxpayer, are F’ed.

RTWT, and save the Dave!

Political Commentary

I Agree With Tigerhawk

2 Comments

I would love an Obama presidency with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Unfortunately, that’s not a choice realistically on offer. The best we’ll probably be able to do, absent some political earthquake, is a McCain in the White House, with Dems continuing to misrule the Hill. That’s not a good thing, but it’s better than the donkeys running the whole show (despite the fact that McCain isn’t much of a Republican, either).

On the other hand, a Democrat monopoly on power would have salutary effects on the elections in 2010. But I fear the SCOTUS replacements that would almost certainly ensue in the interim, which are much harder to undo. That’s really the bottom line to want to keep Obama out of the White House.

Space

NASA Employee Bleg

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Can anyone at the agency go on the record (with PAO permission) and tell me why they think that sending ISS to the moon is a bad idea? I’m working on a piece (I think it’s a bad idea, myself, and have some better ones). Email me at the upper-left email.

Political Commentary, Space

More Fear Mongering

1 Comment

Mike Griffin again disquisites on the Yellow Peril.

Well, actually he doesn’t. Here’s all he says (unless there’s some elaboration to which the BBC is privy, but we are not):

Speaking to the BBC News website during a visit to London, Dr Griffin said: “Certainly it is possible that if China wants to put people on the Moon, and if it wishes to do so before the United States, it certainly can. As a matter of technical capability, it absolutely can.”

What does that mean? If he means that if China made it as much of a priority as we did during Apollo, and if we continue on our own disastrous plans, that they could reverse engineer what we did and put some Taikonauts on the moon before NASA lands astronauts, sure.

But how likely is that? And even if it happened, what’s the big deal? We were first on the moon, they were second. Big whoop. There’s no way on their current technological trajectory to do it in any sustainable way, and even if they did, there’s nothing they could realistically do there that would constitute a threat to us, either in terms of national security, or our own ability to do things there on our own pace.

My take?

It is extremely unlikely–the Chinese are not fools. They know how much it will cost to do a manned lunar mission, and it’s not a high priority, particularly when their economy is potentially a house of cards (something not made better by the current energy prices, which will result in either a curtailing of their fuel subsidies, or a decline in economic growth, or both). If and when they are serious about going to the moon, it will be quite obvious, and we’ll have plenty of time to do something about it if we think that it’s actually a problem.

But Mike apparently thinks that he’ll have a better chance of getting increased funding for Apollo on Steroids if he can frighten uninformed people about the Chinese taking over the moon.

Political Commentary

It’s No Excuse

19 Comments

You know, we lowly, benighted citizens are always told that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, considering the size of the federal code, and that of all the states in which we live, and occasionally move to, often on short notice, how does one justify this?

It’s not just about the ability for citizens to take pictures of police officers in public places (though that’s important too; see: King, Rodney). It’s about the officer’s behavior — specifically his attempt to bully this man into compliance with an illegal demand, using his power as an officer of the law in the service of his personal pique, at the expense of the citizenry that he is supposed to “serve and protect.” It is absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable for police officers to use the authority conferred by their badges to violate people’s rights in this manner, and society needs to send that message loud and clear.

Should ignorance of the law be an excuse for this man? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that those enforcing the law should be much more responsible for knowing it than those who are being oppressed by ignorance of it.

Technology and Society

Empirical Evidence At The Nanoscale

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This is pretty damned cool:

Chan said the experiment shows that it is not possible to simply add the force on the constituent solid parts of the plate — in this case, the tines — to arrive at the total force. Rather, he said, “the force actually depends on the geometry of the object.”

“Until now, no significant or nontrivial corrections to the Casimir force due to boundary conditions have been observed experimentally,” wrote Lamoreaux, now at Yale University, in a commentary accompanying publication of the paper.

I don’t know what it means for the singularity, but molecular manufacturing seems to be moving along nicely. Tony Snow’s death was sobering for me, because we were very close to the same age. Fortunately, I don’t have the genetic time bomb that he did, though my family’s heart history is worrisome. All I can do is do what I can do, and hope that things will come along.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!